POPE & TALBOT, INC. v. HAWN ET AL.
No. 13
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued October 12, 1953. Decided December 7, 1953.
346 U.S. 406
Charles Lakatos argued the cause for Hawn, respondent. With him on the brief was Samuel H. Landy.
Thomas F. Mount argued the cause for Haenn Ship Ceiling & Refitting Corp., respondent. With him on the brief was Joseph W. Henderson.
MR. JUSTICE BLACK delivered the opinion of the Court.
The respondent Charles Hawn sustained severe physical injuries when he slipped and fell through an uncovered hatch hole on the petitioner Pope & Talbot‘s vessel. The ship was then berthed at a pier located in Pennsylvania waters of the Delaware River. Loading of the vessel with grain for a voyage had been temporarily interrupted to make minor repairs on the grain loading equipment. Hawn was doing carpentry work on this equipment to make it spread the grain evenly and thereby balance the ship‘s load to make the coming voyage safer. He was not an employee of Pope & Talbot‘s but of the respondent Haenn Ship Ceiling and Refitting Company which had been hired to make these repairs. Hawn brought this civil action in a United States District Court to recover damages for his injuries. His complaint charged that his injuries resulted from the vessel‘s unseaworthiness and from Pope & Talbot‘s negligence. In answering, Pope & Talbot denied both charges and set up contributory negligence as a defense to each. In addition, Pope & Talbot brought in Hawn‘s employer Haenn as a third party defendant, alleging that Haenn‘s negligence had caused Hawn‘s injury and claiming recovery over against
The Court of Appeals reversed the judgment for contribution by Haenn on the basis of our holding in Halcyon Lines v. Haenn Ship Ceiling & Refitting Corp., 342 U. S. 282. In that case we held that contribution could not be exacted under circumstances like those here involved. For that reason we affirm the Court of Appeals reversal of the District Court‘s judgment against Haenn and proceed to a consideration of the several questions presented by Pope & Talbot as grounds for attack on Hawn‘s judgment.
First. Petitioner urges that the jury finding of contributory negligence should have been accepted as a complete bar to Hawn‘s recovery. The contention appears to rest on two separate bases: (a) Admiralty has not developed any definite rule as to the effect of contributory negligence, and therefore the common-law rule under which contributory negligence bars recovery should govern in admiralty, (b) Pennsylvania law controls this case and under that state‘s law any contributory negligence of an injured person is an insuperable bar to his recovery.
(a) The harsh rule of the common law under which contributory negligence wholly barred an injured person
(b) Nor can we agree that Hawn‘s rights must be determined by the law of Pennsylvania, under which, it is said, any contributory negligence would bar all recovery in this personal injury action. True, Hawn was hurt inside Pennsylvania and ordinarily his rights would be determined by Pennsylvania law. But he was injured on navigable waters while working on a ship to enable it to complete its loading for safer transportation of its cargo by water. Consequently, the basis of Hawn‘s action is a maritime tort,2 a type of action which the Constitution has placed under national power to control in “its substantive as well as its procedural features . . . .” Panama R. Co. v. Johnson, 264 U. S. 375, 386. And Hawn‘s complaint asserted no claim created by or arising out of Pennsylvania law. His right of recovery for unseaworthiness and negligence is rooted in federal maritime law. Even if Hawn were seeking to enforce a state created remedy for this right, federal maritime law would be controlling. While states may sometimes supplement
Another argument is that Pennsylvania law must govern here because the District Court‘s jurisdiction was rested on diversity of citizenship under
Second. Haenn has been making compensation payments to Hawn because of obligations imposed by the Longshoremen‘s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act.
Third. We are asked to reverse this judgment by overruling our holding in Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85. Sieracki, an employee of an independent stevedoring company, was injured on a ship while working as a stevedore loading the cargo. We held that he could recover from the shipowner because of unseaworthiness of the ship or its appliances. We decided this over strong protest that such a holding would be an unwarranted extension of the doctrine of seaworthiness to workers other than seamen. That identical argument is repeated here. We reject it again and adhere to Sieracki. We are asked, however, to distinguish this case from our holding there. It is pointed out that Sieracki was a “stevedore.” Hawn was not. And Hawn was not loading the vessel. On these grounds we are asked to deny Hawn the protection we held the law gave Sieracki. These slight differences in fact cannot fairly justify the distinction urged as between the two cases. Sieracki‘s
Fourth. A concurring opinion here raises a question concerning the right of Hawn to recover for negligence—a question neither presented nor urged by Pope & Talbot. It argues that the Sieracki case, by sustaining the right of persons like Hawn to sue for unseaworthiness, placed them in the category of “seamen” who cannot, under The Osceola, 189 U. S. 158, maintain a negligence action against the shipowner. The Osceola held that a crew member employed by the ship could not recover from his employer for negligence of the master or the crew member‘s “fellow servants.” Recoveries of crew members were limited to actions for unseaworthiness and maintenance and cure. But Hawn was not a crew member. He was not employed by the ship. The ship‘s crew were not his fellow servants. Having no contract of employment with the shipowner, he was not entitled to maintenance and cure. The fact that Sieracki upheld the right of workers like Hawn to recover for unseaworthiness does not justify an argument that the Court thereby blotted out their long-recognized right to recover in admiralty for negligence.6
Affirmed.
MR. JUSTICE FRANKFURTER, concurring.
We are told that Hawn‘s “right of recovery for unseaworthiness and negligence is rooted in federal maritime law.” No case or student of admiralty is cited in support of this statement.
In 1903, this Court in The Osceola, 189 U. S. 158, recognized for the first time the right of crew members to recover for the unseaworthy condition of their ship and denied a right of recovery against the shipowner for negligence. Not until 1920, and then by Act of Congress,
I would affirm the judgment of the Court of Appeals, because the separate finding that the ship was unseaworthy supports recovery.1 This, of course, assumes Hawn was the kind of worker who we held in Sieracki could recover for unseaworthiness.
The right of seamen to recover for unseaworthiness is peculiarly a cause of “admiralty and maritime jurisdiction,”
If negligence were the only count in the complaint and the jury found it, or if the jury had found the ship seaworthy but sustained the negligence claim, different considerations would come into play not now before us. The opinion below indicates that the application of Pennsylvania law would have completely barred recovery, since the plaintiff was contributorily negligent. Therefore, to recover solely on the basis of Pope and Talbot‘s negligence, Hawn would have to rely on a federal maritime cause of action for negligence to which contributory negligence is not a bar. Whether such a cause of action would be available in this case is a difficult question which should not be decided here, since its disposition is unnecessary in view of the separate finding of unseaworthiness.
Both before and after this Court‘s decision in The Osceola, recognizing the right of crew members to recover for unseaworthiness, longshoremen recovered for negligence—often described as “negligence of the ship“—as did other business invitees. Compare Leathers v. Blessing, 105 U. S. 626, with The Max Morris, 137 U. S. 1. Although these were cases where the elements of unseaworthiness were probably present, courts rarely used that term. The plaintiff‘s default in such cases did not bar recovery altogether, however, but rather served to reduce the damages to be awarded.
In Sieracki, this Court assimilated longshoremen to seamen and held that they could recover for unseaworthiness. That decision inevitably raises doubts whether longshoremen are still entitled to recover against a shipowner for
On the one hand, it may be urged that Sieracki broadened the rights of shore workers; it gave them a seaman‘s status without depriving them of the right of action they had before they attained that status. On the other, it may be urged with equal reason that a longshoreman should not be able to “play it both ways“: be entitled, that is, to a seaman‘s remedy for unseaworthiness and also enjoy recovery from the shipowner for negligence which, prior to the Jones Act, was denied to a seaman. He would thus have available two non-statutory remedies to recover damages for his injuries, while the crew mem-
Since unseaworthiness affords longshoremen recovery without fault and has been broadly construed by the courts, e. g., Mahnich v. So. S. S. Co., note 2, supra, it will be rare that the circumstances of an injury will constitute negligence but not unseaworthiness. Even if such a case should arise, the longshoreman, were he barred from suing the shipowner for negligence, has available the statutory remedy against his employer which Congress has given him in the Longshoremen‘s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act.
But the practical importance of the question is no measure of its difficulty. It raises subtle issues of such judicial lawmaking as is the main source of maritime law. We ought not to embarrass future answers to such a question by premature pronouncements, especially without the benefit of mature submissions by counsel.
Since the Erie problem is not here, it is also irrelevant to decide what remedy a state court could give or decline to give. We should not even imply that if suit had been brought in a state court and the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania had held that its law prevented a contributorily negligent plaintiff from recovering in Pennsylvania courts, we would overrule that judgment and require the state courts to provide a remedy.
Of course, when state courts purport to enforce federally created rights, they must apply the contents of those rights as determined by this Court. Garrett v. Moore-McCormack Co., 317 U. S. 239. But whether it is federal law that a state court is enforcing or the state fails
MR. JUSTICE JACKSON, with whom MR. JUSTICE REED and MR. JUSTICE BURTON join, dissenting.
It may be conducive to a dispassionate consideration of the law of this case to remind ourselves that the plaintiff below unquestionably was covered by the Longshoremen‘s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act. Nobody questions his right to all that other injured harbor workers usually receive for like injury or to what this plaintiff would receive for the same injuries if suffered under slightly different circumstances. What is in issue here is a bonus recovery over and above the statutory scale of compensation that Congress has established for injured harbor workers in general, which this plaintiff claims only because of special circumstances said to create a liability by a third party, a bareboat charterer we will refer to as the shipowner.
This decision seems to me to so confuse maritime law with common and statutory tort law as to destroy the integrity of the former as a separate system based on the peculiarities and risks of seagoing labor.
1. DIVERSITY OF CITIZENSHIP AND PENNSYLVANIA STATE LAW.
This case was instituted on the law side of federal district court, the complaint specifically alleging that “jurisdiction is based on diversity of citizenship” and pleading the other requisites of that jurisdiction. After amendment, the complaint alleged both ordinary common-law negligence and lack of seaworthiness against the shipowner. As I shall presently point out, the allegations of negligence could not have been an invocation of the
This being the form of action, the plaintiff had a jury trial. The court‘s instructions scrambled common-law negligence doctrines with admiralty principles of indemnity for unseaworthiness.
But, as a diversity action based on the tort law of Pennsylvania, plaintiff‘s case must fail because the jury, in answer to special interrogatories, reported that the plaintiff himself was guilty of negligence which contributed 17 1/2% to his injuries. Under Erie R. Co. v. Tompkins, 304 U. S. 64, the law of the state of injury would apply to the case and, under Pennsylvania law, contributory negligence defeats recovery. Therefore, some other basis must be found to sustain the verdict.
2. ACTION FOR NEGLIGENCE.
The failure of maritime law to afford a remedy for negligence, The Osceola, 189 U. S. 158, was overcome by the Federal Jones Act,
It is clear that Congress provided the compensation remedy, not the Jones Act remedy, for such a case as this. In International Stevedoring Co. v. Haverty, 272 U. S. 50, this Court attempted to allow recovery by a longshoreman against his employer under the Jones Act. Immediately Congress passed the Longshoremen‘s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, which made exclusive, as against the employer, the compensation remedy it conferred on longshoremen and harbor workers. So the Jones Act is not available to support a recovery against this plaintiff‘s employer because of provisions of the compensation Act, nor against the shipowner because the Jones Act makes no one liable who is not an employer. Therefore, as a tort action this case cannot be sustained under the Federal Act.
If plaintiff was invoking Pennsylvania negligence law—the ordinary law of the business invitee—he cannot recover because he was contributorily negligent. The only possible basis for recovery is a maritime tort. The question is a tricky and difficult one, resurrecting old cases which involved many aspects of maritime law no longer in force. In any event, the charge below so scrambled two theories of recovery that the jury could not possibly have had a fair understanding of the law of the case. The jury was instructed on the one hand that negligence was not necessary to recovery because of the unseaworthiness theory and on the other that negligence itself was a basis for recovery. The least petitioner was entitled
3. INDEMNITY FOR UNSEAWORTHINESS.
Along with the claim of common-law negligence there was submitted to the jury in this case, as an alternative basis of liability, the claim that the ship was unseaworthy. It is true that a seaman has a right to indemnity or compensatory damages where he can show injury from unseaworthiness of the ship.
As was explained in The Osceola, supra, at 171, this was adopted into our maritime law from British legislation, wherein “in every contract of service, express or implied, between an owner of a ship and the master or any seaman thereof, there is an obligation implied that all reasonable means shall be used to insure the seaworthiness of the ship before and during the voyage.” This obligation was adopted into American admiralty law as a warranty of seaworthiness, of which the owner is not relieved by exercise of due diligence and which rests on wholly different principles from those of negligence. Mahnich v. Southern S. S. Co., 321 U. S. 96, 100. But this case was begun, tried, submitted and decided as a negligence action, while it is sustained here on an admiralty doctrine of liability for breach of warranty which does not at all depend upon negligence.
The principal reliance of the Court is on Seas Shipping Co. v. Sieracki, 328 U. S. 85. That decision advanced a novel holding that the traditional warranty of seaworthiness extended not only to seamen but also to longshoremen. This was a virtual repetition of the Court‘s earlier effort in the International Stevedoring Co. case, supra, to give seamen‘s remedies to longshoremen, an effort which was promptly rebuffed by Congress when it enacted the Longshoremen‘s and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act
This claimant was a carpenter in the employ of a ship repairing company. That company had a contract to make certain repairs aboard this ship and the claimant was sent aboard by his employer, under whose direction he worked. It does not seem to me that one who hires a contracting firm to put his ship in seaworthy condition guarantees that it is in seaworthy condition before the work starts. If everything were shipshape, he would not need the services of the repairmen.
I think that the expansion of the warranty of seaworthiness from a seaman to a repairman is illogical, contrary to any decisional law and not consistent with the scheme of Congress to maintain a sharp distinction between the seafaring man and the harbor worker.
From ancient times admiralty has given to seamen rights which the common law did not give to landsmen, because the conditions of sea service were different from conditions of any other service, even harbor service. The seaman on board a merchant ship ties his fate to that of the ship and joins its separate community for the voyage. Under earlier conditions seagoing labor was extremely hard. Voyages were long, tedious and treacherous. Shipwreck, stranding, capture by pirates, fire, and other eventualities threatened. Scurvy was common, and the ships were little prepared to combat disease. Discipline
That the sharp differentiation Congress made in the rights of seamen as contrasted with harbor workers has a basis in differences in risk and working conditions will be apparent from a study of
The Government superintends the engagement and discharge of seamen and apprentices and the terms and execution of their contract, and provides for their presence on board at the proper time. §§ 545, 561, 565. A master and the vessel are subject to penalties for taking on a seaman as one of the crew except by virtue of an agreement under such supervision. §§ 567–568, 575. But the penalties are not all on the master and the vessel. Every contract must provide the day and hour when the seaman shall render himself on board the ship. If the seaman shall neglect to be on board at the time mentioned without giving twenty-four hours’ notice of his inability, he may
It is so important to the seaman that the ship be seaworthy that a majority of the crew may complain that the vessel is unseaworthy or unfit in crew, body, tackle, apparel, furniture, provisions or stores to proceed on an intended voyage and thereupon require an inquiry and a determination, and, if the charge is not sustained and the seamen refuse to proceed, they shall forfeit any wages due them. §§ 653, 655. So dependent are they that the Government provides inspection of the crew quarters, which must comply with standards, §§ 660–1, 660a, and the seamen may complain as to the provisions or water and obtain an examination. § 662.
More importantly, the seaman is not a free man. He may not, as the longshoreman or harbor worker may, protect himself by striking or quitting the job. Desertion, refusing without reasonable cause to join his vessel, absence without leave at any time within twenty-four hours of the vessel‘s sailing from any port, or absence from his vessel and from his duty at any time without leave and without sufficient reason, or quitting the vessel without leave after arrival at port and before she is in security, are all punishable by certain forfeitures of his wages. Moreover, at the option of the master, willful
I cannot bring myself to believe that it is either the congressional will or the tradition of maritime law or common sense to mingle the two wholly separate types of labor in their remedies as is being done in this case. There are other questions in the case as to division of the damages which I need not discuss, in view of my conclusion that there is no basis for recovery. I would reverse the judgment below.